Friday 31

GLASS: GemStone, Linux, Apache, Seaside, and Smalltalk

9:00 am - 10:00 am

By: James Foster. James Foster has been working with computers since Fortran programs were submitted on punch cards and 'core' was a fine mesh of wires with tiny magnetic rings (1971). He has been programming in Smalltalk since 1993 and has developed applications with VisualSmalltalk, VisualAge, VisualWorks, Dolphin, and GemStone/S. James is currently QA Lead on the GemStone/S development team.

The Seaside framework provides a layered set of abstractions over HTTP and HTML that can be used for developing sophisticated web applications in Smalltalk. Seaside was developed in Squeak and ports are available for VisualWorks and for Dolphin. While the Seaside framework elegantly addresses HTML generation and application flow-of-control issues, it still leaves a few challenges for the developer--including persistence and multi-user coordination. In this presentation we will demonstrate a port of Seaside to a new dialect: GemStone/S. As a multi-user, persistent Smalltalk implementation that has no native user interface, GemStone/S provides an excellent environment for serving HTML and keeping domain objects persistent.

From one tree to a forest: 15 years of tree growth

10:30 am - 11:15 am

By: Alfred Wullschleger. Working for the last 15 years in Smalltalk, the autor has implemented some large Smalltalk Systems in commercial environments (Public Management and Banking) using small amounts of developers.

Starting with a first simple tree in 1992 for the definition of the structure of reports for police organizations, we have constructed in the course of the years ten different tree-types with significantly different semantics, but with a very high code reuse. In the talk I would like to show the idea of this evolutionary process: when new user requirements arose, we could use our existing structures and add new semantics. This process was evolving in each step more rapidly, because we could use existing code. The last tree that we have constructed only recently was popping up within 3 weeks from the first idea to its first function with full embedding for use by our customer. I also will make a demonstration of some of the capabilities of the trees and their relationship.

Slaps: The Smalltalk LDAP Server

11:15 am - 12:00 pm

By: Bruce Badger. Bruce is an enthusiastic technologist and the Founder of OpenSkills.org, a global non-profit association of professional individuals. His strong technical leadership skills have contributed to his success of a wide range of IT projects, over a period of more than 25 years. He has built and deployed many systems and libraries over the past 10 years, preferring to develop software using Smalltalk, a pure Object Oriented language. Bruce is currently focusing on the evolution of the services market as Free and Open Source software is increasingly adopted. He has written a number of Open Source libraries, and is currently engaged with building the support systems for the OpenSkills association.

Slaps is an LDAP server implemented in Smalltalk. This talk covers:

  • Why Slaps was writen
  • What is LDAP anyway
  • ASN.1 and how to not hate it too much
  • Lots of demos